Washington, D.C. -- The Ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR) sent a letter to Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney urging him to act on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to bring connected vehicle technology, known as Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) to all vehicles. To date, the Trump Administration has not moved this rulemaking forward and recent press reports suggest it is being abandoned.

“Safety advocates and automakers agree on the need for the NHTSA connected vehicle rulemaking. Technology companies oppose the rule because they would like to increase their spectrum allocation to boost profits. Faster access to Snapchat should not be a higher priority than the prevention of tens of thousands of traffic deaths per year…Vehicle-to-vehicle communication can provide dramatically improved safety benefits to all cars, autonomous or human-driven. This safety benefit only becomes a reality if the Office of Management and Budget allows the DSRC rulemaking to move forward,” DeFazio wrote.

DeFazio notes that the automakers who will have to comply with these requirements are supportive of the rulemaking because it will bring interoperability. This rulemaking follows decades of hard work to develop a unifying communication standard for the auto industry, assuring that new vehicles can seamlessly communicate. That technology is now ready for deployment, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives per year.